Before you can use speed to disorient your opponent and induce panic decisions, the opponent must first notice what you are doing. An opponent who is deceived by ambiguity or simply oblivious to his surroundings must simply be made to await the consequences of reality intruding on him.

Ironically, the 2016 contender whose rise concurrent with Trump in the early fall was not affected at all by Trump was Ben Carson. One reason for this is that Carson himself was not only running a highly unconventional campaign, to all appearances he operates in such a closed informational loop that he simply doesn’t process news from outside his favored sources at all. Trump could change the reality on the ground all he wanted, but Carson was going to keep doing his own thing because doing his own thing is what he does.

In time, this has caught up to him. Carson has faded in the polls as voters see his missteps and unpreparedness on major issues, mostly independently of Trump. But Carson’s fall holds lessons for Trump as well, as we shall see. A candidate who ignores any information that doesn’t fit his implicit orientation can avoid distraction, but will sooner or later find to his peril that he is relying on feedback that has lost touch with the reality he is trying to affect.

We’ve discussed thus far the basics of the OODA Loop and how Trump has exploited it. But before we get to where the Loop may begin to bend against him (or some of his adversaries), we need to consider the concept of a subsidiary or dependent loop. That is, a theater of operations that a combatant swoops in and dominates, only to later discover to his grief that he has drawn his attention away from the main battlefield.